


The Long Walk Away

by aithne



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:06:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aithne/pseuds/aithne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Locked into a cycle of hatred and desire, there's only one way out for Cullen and Amell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Walk Away

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to something that was posted on Tumblr. This is NOT the Old Roads version of Cullen and Amell (thank goodness). Please note: this is dubcon on several different levels.

Her hand is on his breastplate.

Cullen's heart is ratcheting around in his chest—surely she can feel it through the padding and metal. He almost shakes with it. _(Whisper a prayer.)_ He looks down at her hand. Short fingers, gnawed fingernails, torn cuticles. An ugly bruise on the back of her hand, spreading from third finger to wrist.

_(For I would walk only where You would bid me.)_

She fell, when she touched the lyrium font, and her hand hit the toe of his boot hard.

Now she's here, Harrowed, alive, and that bruised hand is on his chest, and her eyes are searching his face. The corner of her mouth twists. He stutters. "I…can't. Shouldn't."

Her expression contains a savage light, and he runs.

* * *

The Warden-Commander takes her from the Tower.

He's relieved.

But late at night, when his hand moves on himself, it's her mouth Cullen sees in his mind.

_(In blackest envy were the demons born.)_

* * *

She doesn't listen to him when she returns.

The Tower is saved, and she is a hero, and he's just the fool who was locked in a cage with the demons tearing at his mind. Everywhere he looks is washed with violet still. His heartbeat won't calm, his hands will not relax, nothing works.

He finds himself in the chapel. Kneeling at the feet of the broken statue of Andraste. Praying. His shirt sticks to his back where a cold sweat is wrung from his skin.

_(Let mine be the last sacrifice.)_

She's there.

Her hand slides under his jaw. Cullen looks up into her eyes.

She reeks of magic, blood, old sweat, death. Her hair is lank. There's something between them. A violet light. A cage.

"I hate you," he whispers.

She twists her mouth and gives a small, cracked laugh. "So?"

Then her mouth is hard on his and it's the first time he's ever been kissed, and one of her teeth nicks his lip and his mouth is flooded with the taste of blood. _Please._ But the violet light chokes him.

She yanks Cullen to his feet. There's blood on her lips. "I—" he says. Tries to say. Stutters. She doesn't listen. Instead, she fists her hand in the front of his shirt and pulls him against her. "Amell," he says, and her name is poison on his lips. "What are—"

She silences him with her lips and tongue, and he sways back for a moment before leaning into her, pressing her back against a pillar. She snarls something soft against his mouth. He growls back, and she arches against him, shameless.

There's a hand at his trousers, unlacing him, and she's wearing the most _preposterous_ robes, easy enough to push up. She's not wearing smalls. In another moment, neither is he.

He's got her pinned against the column and there's a need tearing at him, her legs wrapped around his waist and her hand guiding him in—

_(Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls.)_

It's quick, too quick, his release coming as a shock as Cullen drives into her, trying to keep quiet. She pounds on his back and then claws his shoulder. " _Bastard._ " They pause for a moment, Cullen's heart beating nearly out of his chest.

Then she pushes him away from her.

He steps back, taking a great gulp of air, reeling away from her. She grabs the front of his shirt again, her eyes ablaze, a scorched smell rising from her skin. She snarls, showing a broken front tooth. "On your _fucking_ knees."

Uncomprehending, he does as he's told.

Amell slings one leg over his shoulder. "Get to work," she says, and fists her hand in his hair.

And—

_Oh._

He barely knows what he's doing, is going off half-remembered whispers from the barracks, but from the muffled noises she's making he's got the general idea, lips and tongue and a bit of teeth, his head spinning so hard. The world is violet. A cage. This cage.

When she's satisfied, Amell pulls away from his mouth. She puts her foot back on the ground and pulls down her robes.

She walks out of the chapel, smoothing her robes over her hips, and doesn't look back. Cullen is left on his knees, shaking.

He prays, but he suspects that no one listens.

* * *

They find each other two more times before she leaves again.

Once in an empty storeroom. Once in the Harrowing Chamber among the rotting lumps of flesh no one has managed to clean up yet.

Twice, and she's gone.

Six months later, she's dead.

He receives the news with barely a flinch. There's a sensation in his chest like a door closing. Cullen feels nothing, except a tiny, guilty relief.

_(With passion'd breath does the darkness creep./It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep.)_

* * *

Two years later, he's in Kirkwall.

"I knew an Amell, once," he says to her wayward cousin, and the small smile on his face is a lie. The noonday sun floods the Gallows courtyard with unforgiving light. Hawke's eyes are the same color as Amell's. "Extraordinary woman. I'll never again meet her like."

He hopes.

_(O Maker, hear my cry: Guide me through the blackest nights.)_


End file.
